Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion has reportedly threatened to resign from his leadership of the Government, if Parliament’s committee on foreign affairs and security continues to insist on probing the affair involving Pinhas Lavon, secretary-general of the Israel Federation of Labor, who resigned from the Cabinet as Minister of Defense in 1955.
Mr. Ben-Gurion conferred today with President Izhak Ben-Zvi, after a meeting of the Cabinet at which the Lavon affair was discussed. Circles close to Mr. Ben-Gurion said that the Premier’s visit was intended to underscore his insistence that the Parliament committee halt its probe into the Lavon matter, on threat that, otherwise, he would quit.
At the meeting of the Cabinet, Mr. Ben-Gurion requested that a judicial commission be appointed, with powers of subpoena, to as certain the facts about who gave the orders in 1955 that resulted in the Lavon affair. Minister of Justice Pinhas Rosen is expected to formulate before next week’s Cabinet meeting the terms of reference for such a commission.
The Prime Minister disclosed to the Cabinet that two Israeli Army officers, one of whom is now in the Army, and the other on reserve duty, participated in “inciting” a witness to give false testimony during the 1955 probe that preceded Lavon’s resignation from the Defense Ministry. The Premier said that the Chief of Staff of Israel’s Defense Forces must now consider whether the regular army officer who participated in suborning perjury should be disciplined.
None of the specific details surrounding the Lavon affair has ever been disclosed, since these details are said to involve state security matters.
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